Finding QSOs behind the Galactic Plane. I. The GPQ cat.

However, the search for GPQs is difficult due to large extinctions and high source densities in the Galactic plane. Existing selection methods for quasars developed using high Galactic latitude (high-b) data cannot be applied to the Galactic plane directly because the photometric data obtained from high-b regions and the Galactic plane follow different probability distributions.

To alleviate this data set shift problem for quasar candidate selection, we adopt a transfer-learning framework at both the data and algorithm levels. At the data level, to make a training set in which a data set shift is modeled, we synthesize quasars and galaxies behind the Galactic plane based on SDSS sources and the Galactic dust map. At the algorithm level, to reduce the effect of class imbalance, we transform the three-class classification problem for stars, galaxies, and quasars into two binary classification tasks.